Christmas Thoughts

Christmas, and New Year, are excellent moments to pause and reflect--as scattered families regather for the national holiday, and as the calendar turns over again, with another year gone forever. J. C. Ryle urges us--in the midst of our feasting and festivities and family reunions--to make time to consider our spiritual state and our relationship with God. How is it with our souls? What do we make of Jesus Christ? What will be our future, when all our Christmases are past? This little book contains five of Ryle's most popular Christmas tracts, the spiritual wisdom of which is timeless. Ryle challenges us--while we enjoy the wonderful delights of mince pies and mistletoe and mulled wine and music and merriment--to make the most of every Christmas, to consider seriously the person of Jesus Christ and questions of eternal significance. In Words from the Cross Ian Hamilton places Jesus' seven expiring words of grace and hope in their wider biblical context and explores their theological, pastoral, and evangelistic significance. The short chapters encourage us to reflect and meditate on the love of God which is 'the fountainhead of the gospel' (John Owen) and bring us to devote all we are to the Saviour who gave his all for us.

Ryle started his ministry as curate at the Chapel of Ease in Exbury, Hampshire, moving on to become rector of St Thomas's, Winchester in 1843 and then rector of Helmingham, Suffolk the following year. While at Helmingham he married and was widowed twice. He began publishing popular tracts, and Matthew, Mark and Luke of his series of Expository Thoughts on the Gospels were published in successive years (1856-1858). His final parish was Stradbroke, also in Suffolk, where he moved in 1861, and it was as vicar of All Saints that he became known nationally for his straightforward preaching and firm defence of evangelical principles. He wrote several well-known and still-in-print books, often addressing issues of contemporary relevance for the Church from a biblical standpoint. He completed his Expository Thoughts on the Gospels while at Stradbroke, with his work on the Gospel of John (1869). His third marriage, to Henrietta Amelia Clowes in 1861, lasted until her death in 1889.